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Wii Outselling PS3 in Japan

Posted by Zonk on from the white-plastic-over-black-plastic dept.

saintory writes "Apparently the Japanese console consumers are sinking their teeth into the modest Wii and are not as interested in the power-packed PS3. In fact, the Wii is outselling Sony's new console by a factor of almost 2:1. The number of PS3s sold into the Japanese market (466,716) falls well short of the million Sony had planned for the end of 2006. 989,118 Wii consoles have been sold in Japan in the same time span. From the article: 'Both Sony and Nintendo are projecting selling 6 million consoles by the end of March. Sony expects to start shipping the PS3 to Europe sometime that month as well. Straggling far behind Sony and Nintendo in the Enterbrain survey was Microsoft's Xbox 360, which had sold 290,467 since its Japan debut in December 2005. Selling machines in large numbers is crucial in the gaming business because it encourages software companies to make more games to play on the machines, which in turn boosts console sales.'"

13 of 385 comments (clear)

  1. From the Sony PR Department: by Zeek40 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Wii is only outselling the PS3 in Japan because the small stature of the average Japanese gamer makes it extremely dangerous for them to attempt to wield the phenomenal gaming power contained within the PS3.

    1. Re:From the Sony PR Department: by Zeek40 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hey, the 80's called, they want their "Hey, the called" jokes back. ;)

  2. are we surprised? by Thansal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, of course not. why?

    Because Sony has not made as many PS3s as Nintendo has made Wiis. Rather simple isn't it?
    Are we surprised that the 360 is tanking? nope, because it doesn't apeal to the japanese market (and it does not have the fanbase that Nintendo and Sony have).

    The real question is how will the number end up once sony gets production going at a decent speed?

    Other peopel have pointed out (and after research I now have to agree) that the PS3 isn't selling in the USA (if any one wants ot buy a PS3, Circuit City has 60gig versions in stock). Yet is is still a chalange (though not impossible) to buy a Wii despite much higher production levels.

    --
    Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
    1. Re:are we surprised? by AeroIllini · · Score: 5, Funny
      Anecdotally, I was at Best Buy yesterday and they were still out of Wii (got a shipment that day but sold out very quickly) but had 12 PS3.
      Proper plurals:

      One Wii, many Wii. A group of Wii is a club.
      One XBox, many XBoxen. A group of XBoxen is a pack.
      One PS3, many PS3s. A group of PS3s is a rarity.

      *rimshot*
      --
      For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
    2. Re:are we surprised? by buffer-overflowed · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Consumers don't care about HD. They don't. If they did, the film industry wouldn't be using 35mm film and the equivalent of 1080p24(which is even *lower* resolution and speed than modern 35mm stocks) for digital when making movies in order to save on costs. There are, and have been film stocks with much higher resolution available for quite a long time, in fact 35mm all but completely replaced higher resolution stocks due to the savings in the early 90s. 70mm used to be a lot more common than it is now. 2001, Lawrence of Arabia, the special effects sequences for close encounters, to name three things, were all shot on 70mm. And of course, there's also IMAX. How many movies get shot on IMAX in a given year? 8, I think.

      So yea, people may claim they want HD. But they don't. No one watches a DVD now and goes "damn, this sucks." Few went to the theatre for the new Star Wars films and bitched about the fact that the resolution was a fraction of traditional 35mm stocks. Even on my setup (720p native projector onto a 102" glass-beaded screen) which makes most people's "huge" HDTVs look positively tiny. I have *yet* to hear someone complain about DVDs on my setup, they're blown away by how theatre-like the setup is. Would a Blu-ray or an HD-DVD player improve that? Yea, probably, but it's not worth the frickin' money when no one complains about it now. Same logic the film industry uses in not using higher-resolution stocks and switching to digital. I think they know their stuff personally. Even if they are trying to market the opposite to the unwashed masses.

      The fact is, neither HD format, or existing HD televisions can display the majority of the information contained on a theoretical pristine 35mm film print even from pre-WW2(and stock/grain quality has advanced a lot since then). So, if you really want quality, pick up a projector and some reels. The resolution blows everything else out of the water atm, and that's the only advantage it really has, and I mean money is no object when it comes to picture quality, right? DVDs offered a ton of convienance features over VHS tapes, no rewinding, start/stop, extra content in the form of multiple audio tracks, etc. The HD formats offer... resolution. At 10-20 times the price for a player, 2-4x the price per movie, and with a fraction of the selection. Man, what a frickin' deal! And this isn't even going into things like ideal view distance.

      The future is downloaded / on the demand content because it offers substantive advantages over DVD.

      --
      The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
  3. Causes: Price, Games by I'll+Provide+The+War · · Score: 5, Informative

    It is certainly no longer a supply issue as PS3s are sitting on shelves all over Japan.

    http://kotaku.com/gaming/top/ps3-sales-look-sluggi sh-in-japan-part-ii-226243.php

    http://kotaku.com/gaming/top/those-ps3s-sales-look -sluggish-in-japan-225907.php

  4. Feature list for immature almost-tri-genarians by Chris+Burke · · Score: 5, Funny

    PS3:
    - SIXAXIS controller, which if pronounced sloppily can sound like "sex-asses".
    - Motion sensing adds some potential.
    Sex joke quotient: 50.

    Wii:
    - Name is inherently a phallus joke.
    - Controller is phallic object, and referred to as "Wii-mote".
    - Phallic object is "motion sensitive"
    - Phallic object vibrates.
    Sex joke quotient: 1 billion.

    Winner: Wii. Wii always wins.

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are
  5. Re:This is news because... by dctoastman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Um, the fact that the PS3 is no longer selling out (at least here in the States) should be a telling factor.

    And maybe I should tell you about the two WalMarts, Target, Best Buy, Circuit City, Gamestop, and EB Games, all of which have PS3 stock. (Not to mention nearby (but inconvenient) Toys R Us stores).

    Sony does have enough supply to fulfill demand now. Demand is just really low.

    --
    My twitter
  6. Re:PS3 in Europe by nomadic · · Score: 5, Funny

    This wont help either, the average european household has way less money to spend than the average US one.

    Plus the simple European folk tend to use turnips as their currency, and I think the yen-turnip exchange rate is particularly unfavorable this year.

  7. Re:PS3 in Europe by maglor_83 · · Score: 5, Funny
    Plus the simple European folk tend to use turnips as their currency
    Oh come on. We all know only the Swedes do that.
  8. Re:PS3 in Europe by Asic+Eng · · Score: 5, Funny
    yen-turnip exchange rate is particularly unfavorable this year.


    Actually the exchange rate should favour sales to the turnip union. In principle a US$900 console should only cost 695 Turnips currently.

  9. Re:This is news because... by wiggles · · Score: 5, Informative

    PS3's are not selling out any more.

    Evidence:
    http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/nikkei/nikkei-on-big- ds-and-wii-sales-slow-ps3-sales-226834.php
    http://www.unscripted360.com/2006/12/28/playstatio n-3-sitting-not-selling/
    http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/ps3/plenty-o-ps3s-but -no-takers-225271.php
    http://www.techimo.com/forum/t180097.html
    http://www.gamespot.com/news/6162141.html
    http://www.joystiq.com/2007/01/06/ps3-available-on -bestbuy-com-still/

  10. Wii PS3. Why? by mattpointblank · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My friend has a Wii and I've played several times, and this is what I told him regarding the PS3 vs Wii debate (full disclosure: I've never played a PS3):

    When I first played a games console, oh, back in the halcyon days of 1992 or so, it was a Sega Mega Drive (aka "Genesis" in the US). It was a whole new experience for me, being able to interact with an onscreen character using a handheld controller. It was a new world and I loved it and was introduced to a whole wealth of other systems.

    Fastforward 13 years and nothing has really changed. Games look better, are more imaginative and offer me more satisfying results than grabbing rings and power-ups. But the gaming concept itself is still pretty much the same. We all laze around on couches, plugged into the console, and gradually fall asleep in marathon gaming sessions.

    2006: enter the Wii (no pun). I was a little skeptical after seeing the ads and the less-than-impressive graphics, but being there when my friend first plugged his Wii in was like being transported back to when I was 6 again. I was genuinely excited and amused playing WiiSports, with the new concept the controller had brought to my gaming.

    The PS3 might look prettier and have more power. It even plays DVDs and other things I have no interest in. But what it doesn't have is a revolutionary new design that's been the most innovative thing (at least, in my personal gaming history) since I first started playing consoles. The Wii has got me up off the couch and really interacting with my games, while the PS3, however real it may look compared to the Wii's bobble-headed "Miis", is just another couch-sitting epic.